Hi All,

I decided to enter some baked goods in our Provincial Fall Fair. Sadly they
don't have a decorated cake class

In reading through the rules I discovered that the baked goods are not judged on taste. Just appearance, creativity and visual texture.

I'm guessing the judges don't want to eat things from strangers and I can understand that totally - but I'm still surprised.

Is this normal in the fairs you participate in?

It depends on what category you enter.

Decorating contests are judged on the criteria you stated.

Other contests have different criteria...

Some 4-H judging guidelines:

http://tinyurl.com/2yoelh

http://tinyurl.com/3tubxg

http://tinyurl.com/3joptl

HTH

In my area, most of the baked goods are judged primarily on taste. If you walk through the exhibit hall after the judging, you'll see pieces cut out of all the cakes, pies, breads, etc...After one of the major fairs that we have every summer, there are actually write-ups in the newspaper from judges describing the taste of the winning entries and the winning recipes are published as well. The exception to this is the decorated cakes category, which isn't tasted at all in most fairs around here.

Like you mentioned, I can understand why people don't want to eat and judge food made by strangers, but isn't that the purpose of the whole thing???? Don't we bake stuff so people can eat it??

From what I understand about entries to the Texas State Fair, the entries are sampled by the judges. Otherwise, what is the point?